


ruin, if you like

by jvnivs



Category: Ancient History RPF, Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF, Julius Caesar - Shakespeare, Βίοι Παράλληλοι - Πλούταρχος | Parallel Lives - Plutarch
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, brutus survives philippi, things get worse before they get better
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:15:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28496676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jvnivs/pseuds/jvnivs
Summary: against all odds, Brutus survives Philippi
Relationships: Mark Antony/Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19





	ruin, if you like

The sun beats down, hot and unrelenting, over the acts of violence being performed on the landscape, and through the throng of bodies on the field: Antony sees Brutus.

It would look like Brutus was locked in a tender embrace with another soldier if it wasn’t for the sword joining them together. Brutus, hands clasped around the blade as if to pull it further inside himself. The soldier, face grim, eyes red with unshed tears, both determined and resigned.

This is not how it was supposed to go, thinks Antony.

( _and how exactly_ , comes the voice of pragmatism, _did you think it was going to go?_ )

He cuts through the tides of war, through all the fighting and the dying (because of all the languages he understands, defiance and survival are the ones he knows best) and shoves them apart.

Up close, Antony recognizes the soldier as one of Brutus’ friends, Lucilius. Loyal in service to the end, he thinks distantly, because his focus isn’t to the horrified and furious despair on Lucilius’ face, but instead towards Brutus, who has fallen to his knees now that there was no one to hold him upright.

‘We wanted you alive, you fucking fool,’ says Antony, reaching for Brutus.

Brutus smiles, the red of blood on his teeth standing out starkly against the bone white pallor of his skin. ‘Oh Antony,’ he says, hands tightening around the blade still in his gut. ‘We all died weeks ago.’

Antony takes Brutus’ hands in his own and holds them in place. ‘You’ll bleed to death if you remove that.’

‘You hear that, Lucilius?’ laughs Brutus, a horrible rasping sound. ‘Perhaps we should have just gone for the neck. A clean execution.’ He holds a hand up to Antony’s face, and Antony shudders at the feeling of blood, slick against his cheek. ‘You could have given Octavian my head on a silver tray.’

Lucilius makes a noise like he’s trying not to retch, and Antony can’t blame him. ‘What part of _we didn’t want you dead_ isn’t reaching your mind?’ he grits out. Brutus gives Antony a look that’s full of pity and something else that he can’t quite identify before pitching forward, unconscious, body slack against Antony.

He panics wildly for a moment. Too late again, thinks Antony, always too late, except he can feel Brutus’ breath, uneven and faint, against his own neck.

That’s the thing to focus on.

Not dead.

Definitely alive.

Not too late after all.

‘A doctor,’ Antony manages to say to Lucilius, who takes off immediately.

And as he holds Brutus, counting each breath with dread that this one will be the last, Antony wonders if this is mercy or something worse.

.

Brutus survives being carried away from the field, for a given definition of surviving. He looks remarkably like a corpse despite proof of life, and it makes Antony feel like they're all in some kind of stasis, trying to play at being gods by drawing out an inevitable conclusion.

Lucilius refuses to leave Brutus’ side. Antony understands the feeling: he probably shouldn’t be here, and yet he still hasn’t made any kind of move to leave.

‘He’s alive,’ says the doctor, rinsing blood from his hands. (Present tense: conditional) He doesn’t specify whether or not he thinks Brutus will continue to live. (Future tense: _extremely_ conditional)

‘You don’t sound particularly optimistic,’ comments Antony.

The doctor looks from Brutus, to Lucilius, and back to Antony. ‘If he lives through the night, I’ll be surprised,’ he finally says. ‘There’s nothing else I can do. Pick a god to pray to and hope that they will listen.’

Antony watches the halting rise and fall of Brutus’ chest. Measures it against the timing of his own breathing.

Lucilius takes one of Brutus’ hands and intertwines their fingers as the doctor exits the tent, leaving them to deal with the ordeal of waiting on their own. The air of tension that comes before any tragedy is so thick in the tent that Antony gets the impression that Death itself is lingering at the entryway, waiting for one of them to look away so it can steal Brutus away from the land of the living.

He sits across from Lucilius.

‘This isn’t’ says Antony quietly, voice steady, ‘a death vigil.’

‘If that's what makes you feel better,’ replies Lucilius tonelessly.

Antony frowns at him. Lucilius shrugs, although his jaw is clenched, shoulders rigid.

‘This isn’t some kind of fucked up torture I’m getting off on,’ says Antony after a minute, a little offended. ‘Is it really so hard to believe that I also want him to live?’

‘He used to say you were an easy person to read,’ continues Lucilius, ignoring what Antony said entirely. ‘That you were the only person left he could trust to be straightforward in their intentions. Cassius hated that.’

Cassius hated a lot of things, thinks Antony bitterly. A fucking snake in the grass. There’s a good chance that a lot of the grief that happened could have been avoided if Brutus hadn’t been so joined at the hip with the man. 

( _or maybe not_ , supplies the voice of reason. _the shadows the Julii cast are long, and there’s something worse than Cassius could ever be lurking inside of Octavian._ )

It’s entirely possible, concedes Antony, that they had all been set on this particular path, this chain of events, without ever having known they were on it. Like puppets on a stage. Little wooden men on a board.

‘That was kind of him,’ Antony says after a minute.

Lucilius shrugs.

Brutus, of course, is silent, except for the occasional hitch in his breathing.

Despite it all, it feels like a truce.

Like hope.

.

Even though he had insisted that it hadn’t been a death vigil, Antony still feels a kind of vindicated pleasure when the night gives way to the sun rise and Brutus, despite it all, is still breathing.

‘I told you we weren't waiting for death,’ says Antony to Lucilius.

Lucilius smiles faintly. He’s still holding on to Brutus’s hand.

And as the doctor checks over the wound, Antony reaches forward to take Brutus’ other hand into his own, and waits.

**Author's Note:**

> fucking hate Octavian. anyway.
> 
> the title comes from Brewer's translation of 'Après moi, le déluge' to 'Ruin, if you like, when we are dead and gone.'


End file.
